Viral (6 page)

The caffeine had a nice effect, making him want to be traveling somewhere, losing himself in the turns of a new story, not sitting at home waiting for information.

Another sip and Jon returned to the study, entered an international calling card number on his cell phone, punched in 966—the country code for Saudi Arabia—and 1, the city code for Riyadh.

After five rings:
“Allo. Salam Alaikum.”

“Honi Gandera.”

“
Aywa
.”

“Honi. Jon Mallory. In Washington.”

“Jon
Mallory
! Greetings, my friend. Long time.”

“I know. How are you?”

“I am well. You?”

“Fine. Listen, I’m writing a story and I need to talk with someone in Riyadh. Some people there. I’d like you to sponsor me.”

Jon pictured him, his narrow face tightening slightly, his long nose wrinkling behind silver eyeglasses, an elfin smile edging a corner of his lips. Honi had been the editor of an Arabic-language Saudi newspaper for six or seven years but had resigned under pressure after writing editorials critical of Wahhabism and what he called the kingdom’s religious “fanatics.” He was an assistant editor now for a smaller, English-language journal. They’d met in 2005, when Jon had visited the Saudi capital for three days to write a story for
The Weekly American
about the “new Riyadh.”

“Which people?”

“My brother, actually.”

Honi laughed. “We’ve been through this before, my friend. Haven’t we?”

“Yes.”

“I mean, you may come here, certainly. But it does not mean you will find him.”

Vintage Honi
, Jon thought. He was a small, deliberative man, who sighed excessively when nervous or anxious.

Other than as part of an approved group tour, Westerners could visit Saudi Arabia only if they had business or relatives in the kingdom. To travel on business, Jon needed a sponsor who could arrange an invitation through the Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

“Your brother is … difficult to find. A rather elusive character. You know that.” Honi sighed. “We had this conversation some months ago.”

“Yes. I know. But there’s a difference this time.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve been in touch with him recently. He’s part of the story I’m working on. An ongoing series of stories, actually.”

“Do you have an address? Or a contact?”

“Sort of, yes,” Jon said. Not technically true, although he did have the name of a Saudi contractor Charlie may have once done business with—the only lead he had been able to find after hours of Internet searches.

“Why don’t you give it to me and I’ll see what I can find.”

“Don’t think so. I’d rather try to find him myself,” Jon said, suddenly hearing Charlie in his head.
You need to be a witness to something that hasn’t happened yet
. “I’m going to the embassy in the morning. I can file a letter of responsibility and e-mail a copy to you. Okay? I promise I’ll make it worth your while.”

Honi sighed again. “You’re determined, my friend. And a little obsessive.”

“Yes. I know.”

“And when you get here, how will you find him? You’ll want my help, then, too?”

“Maybe.” Jon felt a rush of apprehension. He
wasn’t
sure what he would do, or where he would go, only that he needed to find him.

“Can you tell me what the story’s about?”

“Not in a sentence or two, no. But I will when I get there. I’d be glad to.”

“I’d like to hear it.”

“Okay. Good.”

Jon waited, sensing that a moment of silence would probably seal things.

“Well, okay. Let me see what I can do. How about if I call you tomorrow?”

“Okay. Great. Thanks, Honi.”

WHAT
WAS
THE
story about? Jon Mallory pulled on his down jacket and walked out into the back yard, kicking his feet through the dead grass, enjoying the bracing cold air. He settled on the stone bench at the east edge of the yard, leaning against the oak tree. On one level, it was simply a human interest story—about people coping with the problems of poverty and disease. Problems that, incredibly, had only worsened over the past four decades despite nearly a trillion dollars of development aid funneling into the continent.

But there was another story, too, which his articles had only touched, and maybe it was the story his brother really wanted him to write: Over the last twelve months or so, a handful of Western foundations and relief organizations had poured billions of dollars into aid and development projects in unlikely regions of Africa. Some of the projects were fairly typical, others not. In the impoverished nation of Buttata, a substantial road-building operation was under way, which would eventually link dozens of mud-hut farming villages where the only modes of transportation at present were bicycles and donkey carts. In the Republic of Sundiata, which was virtually cut off to Western visitors because of ongoing ethnic and tribal conflicts, the government had partnered with Chinese charity groups to build health clinics, hospitals, and a wind farm in sparsely populated, remote regions of the country without electricity or running water. In a valley inhabited by goat-herders, what appeared to be a medium-hub airport was under construction, eight or nine kilometers from the vestiges of a village that, according to one account, had recently been decimated by a mysterious flu-like disease.

Jon had stumbled on accounts of this deadly illness elsewhere,
too, while interviewing subsistence farmers. An illness that had supposedly infiltrated several villages and farming communities, killing dozens of people, maybe hundreds. The accounts were all anecdotal and took up only three sentences in his story about the people of Sundiata. But it seemed to bother some of the investors who had interests there.

His stories had also alluded to an apparent contradiction in how some Western foundations operated: Issuing millions, in some cases billions, of dollars in grants to combat poverty, disease, and malnutrition while at the same time investing similar amounts in businesses that contributed to those problems. The prestigious, well-heeled Gardner Foundation, for example, had recently awarded $730 million to a fund battling AIDS and malaria in Africa, primarily in East Africa, while the company also held $1.9 billion worth of stock in thirteen drug companies that were restricting the flow of AIDS and malaria medicines and lobbying for international legislation to prevent other drug-makers from producing cheap generic versions.

He had published two installments of the story in
The Weekly American
. The more recent story, about the two impoverished West African nations, had, for reasons he didn’t understand, elicited denials from some prominent philanthropists. It had also prompted an anonymous, mean-spirited e-mail campaign to Roger Church, Jon Mallory’s editor at
The Weekly American
. All of which had made him suspect that he was on to something he didn’t yet understand.

CHARLES MALLORY PARKED HIS
rented Peugeot 406 a block and a half from Promenade des Anglais, locked it, and walked along the sidewalk toward the water. It was a brisk, bright afternoon in the South of France, normally his favorite time of year in this city. He was dressed in khaki slacks, loafers, and a navy blue polo shirt.

He turned onto the Promenade and walked east, passing the Hotel Negresco, the familiar markets and cafes, coming finally to the building marked 32 1/2, the five-story apartment house where Frederick Collins lived.

He walked around to the back, pressed a six-digit combination on the entry gate pad, and pushed his way in. Took the steps, not the elevator, to an apartment on the fifth floor. Used his key, locked the door behind him. The room was clean, modest, and sparsely furnished. He checked the computerized entry monitor just inside the foyer closet, which recorded each time the door had opened and closed. No activity since he had left, September 12, 1328 hours. No one had been in the apartment.

Charlie walked across the living room and unlocked the French doors, which opened onto a shallow terrace. He stepped out and stood against the railing, breathing the cool Mediterranean breeze for several long moments, watching the turquoise sparkles of the Bay of Angels across the road and the beach. And, briefly, Charlie allowed himself to remember something he had blocked from his thoughts. An evening that had begun a little like this, that wasn’t supposed to have happened. An evening when Frederick Collins was still safe in this city, free to come and go as he pleased.

But he had to turn away from those thoughts, he knew. There was only one direction now, one appointment to keep. Everything in his life had coalesced into one objective. One moment. He locked the
doors again and pulled the curtains. In the bedroom, he slid open a drawer and found Collins’s Glock 17 9mm handgun, loaded with hollow-point bullets. He slid the weapon into the front of his pants, covering it with his polo shirt, and went out again. Down the stairs to the street, north several blocks, then east. He made a turn into an alley flanked by storage bays and warehouses, certain that they had picked him up on satellite-mounted cameras by now. He had provided them ample opportunity. If they had been able to track Frederick Collins to Kampala, they would know to track him here. He had made that easier for them, using Collins’s credit card at the airport and walking through several outdoor public spaces without wearing a cap or a hat.

He stopped in front of a metal door numbered 127 and used his key, jiggled it in the lock and entered. The four-room space smelled of sawdust and paint thinner. He’d converted this apartment into a woodworker’s shop. Cabinet-making was the part-time job that Frederick Collins did when he was here in Nice.

Charlie lowered the blinds of the front window and twisted the wand so the slats were just past horizontal. In the pantry closet was a lifelike partial mannequin and two pillows. He carried them to the old easy chair in the main room and stretched a blanket over them. He set up the room, then, exactly as he had planned in his head during the Air France flight north from Africa. When he was done, he sat at the table in the tiny windowless kitchen and placed the weapon in front of him, gripping the trigger-hold. What followed would be the most difficult part. But it was necessary.

Eventually they would have to come after him; he was certain of that. If he kept moving, they would keep following, to see where he would lead them. If he stayed here, though, if he waited, they would have no choice; sooner or later they would have to come for him. And when they did, he would find out what he needed to know. He would learn the missing piece and, he hoped, understand what had gone wrong.

He sat in the kitchen as the breeze shivered the metal slats in the main room and the shadows lengthened and he listened. Waited.

AND, FOR MOMENTS
at a time, he thought again of Anna Vostrak. Her dark, reassuring eyes looking at his. The smell of curry spices
from a Promenade restaurant reminded him of the last time she had come here—September 1—to visit Frederick Collins. They had sat in a café on Promenade des Anglais, drinking red wine as the night settled, the sea breeze cooled, the lights brightened in the hills above the harbor. They’d talked over a leisurely dinner about their shared project. About the contact she knew in Germany, the investigator who might be able to help him. To help them. A man named Gebhard Keller. And then they had let it go. Anna had looked lovely, her fine black hair lifting up occasionally off her bare shoulders in the breeze. Walking back, she had stopped, held his hand and kissed him. They walked with an expectant step after that, excited, it seemed, by the freedom they had given each other.

Inside, they began to kiss, to take off clothes, as if they had to do it then or the chance would disappear forever. They had made love with a slow urgency, savoring the feelings, the shared need that would be temporarily satisfied. Afterward, as the curtains billowed in around the French doors and the street sounds returned, she had said, “This wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?”

He had closed his eyes and tried not to answer.

She had whispered, “It can’t happen again, can it? Until this business is over.”

The memories were difficult, as she had warned him they would be. But they were also a way to pass time now, a trick that he sometimes used to stay alert—and a diversion, a safe harbor from thoughts of what had happened in Kampala. The more recent memories. Of Paul Bahdru. Of what had gone wrong.

He sat at the table, listening to the sounds outside, his right hand holding the weapon. Waiting.

But he knew now that his words would never come to pass—not as he had intended. Because Frederick Collins was going to die today. There was no alternative. After “this business” was finished.

This business
.

He remembered Paul Bahdru’s voice, then, the pleasant lilting pitch, a musical sound as distinctive as a fingerprint. A sound that he would never hear again.
This feels like a calling now, Charles. It’s all passed along, to witnesses. They think if there are no witnesses, then no one can prove anything
. Telling him things. Trusting him.
If something goes wrong, you do what I would have done
.

A voice in his head. Words that only two people ever heard. That was the arrangement. Maybe they had been wrong about that, too.